Money Worries May Make You Fat: Is Financial Crisis Causing You to Gain Weight?

There is so much diet advice on the market these days that it is hard to keep up with the latest trends. Now, just in time for New Year’s dieting resolutions, naturopathic doctor and author Dr. Penny Kendall-Reid offers a new take on stress, diets and weight gain.

“I’ve been seeing nearly three new patients a day for months, and 90 percent of them have stress-related eating issues,” said Dr. Penny Kendall-Reed.

The naturopathic physician and author claims to help patients “to utilize the brain and holistic measures for controlling food cravings.” She said that she does so without “the unpleasant side-effects normally associated with dieting.”

Does Stress About Jobs and Economy Make Us Eat More?

According to Dr. Kendall-Reed, as people get more stressed about job security and the poor economy, they “compulsively turn to food.”

“Stress stimulates the hunger center in the brain, destabilizes our blood sugar, makes us resistant to our anti-hunger messengers, and reduces our levels of ‘happy hormone’ serotonin, all of which trigger cravings that inevitably lead to weight gain,” said Dr. Kendall-Reed in a recent public statement.

Can the The No-Crave Diet Concept Help You Lose Weight?

Dr. Kendall-Reed has co-authored theNo-Crave Diet concept, with her husband Dr. Stephen Reed. The plan “helps people take back control of their weight by teaching them how to counter the biological process that makes us crave the wrong foods” according to Kendall-Reed, “silencing the craving urge fueled by stress.”

“A standard complaint I get from patients at a time like this is that their diets are not working,” said Dr. Kendall-Reed. “That’s simply because stress promotes storage of calories, particularly around the midsection, which is the most dangerous place to gain weight and the hardest to remove.”

Kendall-Reed claims to have monitored about 90 percent of her patients on the No Crave Dietfor six to eight weeks before the financial crisis spiraled downward in mid October 2008. She said that she “noticed that they have continued to lose weight and report no recurrence of cravings.”

How to Successfully Lose Weight?

No one should adopt a new diet plan without first personally consulting a physician. The No Crave Diet ,along with so many others, may offer some sound advice, but as usual, it is “buiyer beware.” when it comes to new diet books and diet plans.

Stress can certainly wreak havoc on the body. However, the jury is still out about whether or not economic stressis truly making us fatter, though this may well be a theory worth checking out. Add it to the your New Year’s list of healthy diet reading and then talk to your doctor about it.